Road Safety
As inventors of the Energy Absorbing Bollard and the Energy Absorbing Buffer, we have invested heavily in designing and engineering road safety infrastructure to reduce the road toll - here in Australia and across the world.
The Safe System
The Safe System in the National Road Safety Action Plan is a strategy, adopted by the Australian government to eliminate deaths and serious injuries on Australian roads. The approach is based on the Swedish Vision Zero , Dutch Sustainable Safety and UK PACTS concepts introduced in the early nineties. It is being taken up increasingly around the world as a part of the Towards Zero initiative aimed at improving road safety through four principles: Safe Road Use; Safe Roads; Safe Speeds and Safe Vehicles.
The main challenge for automotive and road infrastructure engineers is to provide designs that take into account:
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road users make frequent mistakes that lead to road collisions
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the human body has limited tolerance to injury thresholds
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it is a shared responsibility between all road users to take appropriate actions to ensure that road collisions do not lead to serious or fatal injuries
This can be achieved through Self Explaining Road and Forgiving Roadside philosophies.
The self explaining road
The self explaining road concept stands for a road and traffic environment that brings about safe road behavior simply by its design.
Energy Absorbing Bollards are stylish and provide an aesthetically obvious safety barrier and are safer, cheaper and better suited in an urban environment.
In contrast, the “W” beam of the end terminal has sharp edges and corners and it is fitted next to the bicycle lane.
EABs are stylish and pose a low risk of injury to public
End terminal placed next to a bike lane
poses a high risk of injury to public
The goal of any road designer is to create an environment which will allow travelling public to reach their destination in a timely manner without creating a safety risk. In areas of high pedestrian activity, any additional furniture item or barrier must be constructed of safe materials and designed to prevent injury, without sharp edges or exposed fasteners.
This means eliminating the use of rough and rugged highway barriers in public places. Not only is highway road furniture hazardous to pedestrians but it is also needlessly expensive and clashes with the original design of the space.
EABs are designed for public spaces
End terminal placed in a low speed zone is a pedestrian hazard
The forgiving road
This is simply the requirement that the roadside environment should not contain dangerous elements that will seriously injure or kill vehicle occupants that have unplanned trajectories.
The energy absorbing end terminal is a good choice in this case as it safely deforms during impact and completely stops an out of control vehicle.
On the other hand, a wooden post end terminal is frangible and does not stop the vehicle. A rigid end terminal is also a poor choice as it is frangible and is likely to enter the passenger area in the event of a crash.
Energy absorbing end terminal
Designed to arrest an out of control vehicle
Wooden post end terminal
Does not arrest an out of control vehicle
No end terminal
Does not arrest an out of control vehicle
World Road Accident Statistics
At IAS we believe that road crash fatalities and injuries are predictable and can be prevented. The first step to achieve this is to raise awareness that road trauma in Australia is a major public health concern. With this knowledge we can take action to formulate informed strategies and solutions which will make our roads safer.
Safety for all road users
One of the most difficult challenges in road safety design is making roads safe for everyone. This means that vehicles need to be made safe for passengers but also need to be protective of other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. Similarly, any piece of road furniture designed to protect pedestrians needs to be made safe to protect occupants of a vehicle.
Examples of real life severe car crashes
HEAD-ON
Head-on collisions occur between vehicles travelling in opposite directions.
They can be controlled by installing energy absorbing road dividers, designing safer vehicles and enforcing safe driving laws.
STOBIE POLE
Stobie poles are steel and concrete poles used to support power lines. They are very deadly in common cases of cars running off the road and can result in power outages. Main risk mitigation strategies include running power lines underground or installing additional barriers.
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ROAD BARRIER
Road barriers are typically used to absorb the force of an out of control vehicle running off the road. They can be placed either in the middle of the road to prevent direct car crashes, or at one end of the road to prevent out of control vehicles from hitting a road side object.
Recent stories and resources
